Rememberers Page 2

  For years, neither URO nor A.I. kept written records. The only people who knew of the existence of either were its members. And these were individuals who'd been gleaned from the rolls of the world's varied religions and were used to keeping secrets. But after its year 2000 public outing, URO made a fair amount of information about itself available on the internet. Outside of race and nationality, religion remained the most dangerous bastion of separation amongst people. Worldwide, more people were still being killed in the name of religion than for any other reason. URO's self-disclosure was its effort to start the tides of change. But A.I., for the foreseeable future, would remain as it'd always been—nonexistent.

  The full criterion for acceptance into A.I. was a closely guarded secret, kept by a small handful of its elders who only passed it on orally to longstanding members of A.I. who'd been chosen in a manner more rigorous and selective than the initial selection process to get into URO. However, the first step was a relatively cut and dried one—acceptance into URO. Afterwards, potentials for A.I. were observed and tapped for membership by a sitting A.I. member who'd confirmed the individual's enlightenment and could verify the individual's correct decoding of the allegorically hidden messages in the individual's chosen religion's documented history, e.g. the Bible, or Torah. And subsequently, but perhaps more importantly, the individual's categorical acceptance of the truths thus revealed.

  After a quick exchange of greetings and niceties, Boland said, “Your voicemail sounded tense.”

  “I was visited by an ICE agent today.”

  “With regard to?” Boland asked.

  “Phillip Beamer.”

  “Phillip Beamer,” Boland repeated sourly. “What brought an ICE agent to Philadelphia concerning a death in South Carolina?” The bishop was formerly of Philadelphia but now lived in an oratory in Rock Hill, South Carolina. He'd ordained McCarthy twenty years ago, bringing him into A.I. ten years later. Although McCarthy would never admit it publicly or privately, he trusted Boland more than he did the Pope.

  “My business card was found on Beamer's body.”

  A bit of spit had obviously risen up in Boland's mouth; McCarthy could hear him swallowing it back down. “Your card? He's getting clever.”

  “Well, that's one way of putting it,” McCarthy said.

  “And you have another?”

  “Desperate. Conniving. But I feel he's up to something else.”

  “Such as…”

  McCarthy leaned back in his chair, rubbing his chin. “I don't pretend to know more about Rememberers than what A.I. has shown me. I know that they have the ability to remember past life cycles. I know that we're able to use that ability to document major disasters and tragedies, including terrorist attacks that have occurred in the previous life-cycle. And by doing so, A.I. has been able to prevent some of those tragedies from occurring in our current cycle, and thereby saving countless lives. I know that not all tragedies are created equal. For reasons known only to A.I., some have still been allowed to happen. I don't question the reason for the discrepancy as I've never questioned A.I. Mainly because I know that there are still some truths that I'm still not privy to. And I imagine that A.I.'s reasoning for the discrepancy is based on those truths. But I still maintain that the altering of history or the future is dangerous. I feel he is going to show us how.”

  “I see,” Boland said.

  “Our rogue Rememberer doesn't care about reasoning. I believe his intent is to create chaos. If we don't find him soon, he will accomplish whatever he's seeking to do. And whatever that is can't be good for mankind.”

  “We mustn't panic.”

  “He's taunting us,” McCarthy said strongly. “The Bible verse, the card, the mutilations.”

  Boland groaned noticeably. “Mutilations?”

  “Yes, apparently he visited Beamer after our man left. What he did to the body is unspeakable. I think it's his way of letting us know that he's no longer content with us beating him to the punch. He's an egotistical maniac. And he's sending us a message that he's about to up the game.”

  “What message?”

  “On the back of the card, he scribbled ‘McCarthy Knows’ in blood. That was for us.”

  McCarthy knows?” Boland repeated.

  “The agent wanted to know if I knew what it meant.”

  “This agent, does he suspect you're somehow involved?”

  “It's hard to say. But he didn't fly all the way up here just to say hello. I imagine the authorities had nothing before and now finding my card on Beamer's body gives them something. Between the card and the cryptic message, the rogue is accomplishing exactly what he wanted to.”

  “And that's?”

  “Putting the authorities on our trail will get us off his. At the very least, it'll slow us down. I believe it's also his way of letting us know that he's upping the ante.”

  “Upping it to what?” Boland asked, his tone indicating he hadn't fully accepted that proposition. “Doing his own terrorism?

  McCarthy stared absently at the Larry Bird poster and didn't immediately answer. “That's a possibility. He knows what we know. We know what he knows. He could have warned Beamer that we knew about him. He could have gotten him to change plans, to blow up something at another time and place. But he decided not to. Instead, he allowed Beamer to be killed, and then he goes behind us and mutilates the body, placing my business card on it. Why?”

  “I admit it's curiously sadistic. But, he's a madman. The ability has affected him. There's much we still don't understand about it. Perhaps seeing tragedy even before it actually happens has warped him somehow.”

  “I think there’s more to it than that,” McCarthy said. “He's up to something. I know it.”

  “What does our man say about this theory of yours?”

  “I haven't discussed it with him,” McCarthy said flatly. “I called you first. You should advise A.I.”

  “I will. But you should fill him in.”

  McCarthy took a deep breath. “He's closer to you.”

  “In proximity only,” Boland paused. “He's your mentee.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Hmm,” Boland said. “I sense your reluctance to talk with him.”

  McCarthy took a deep breath. “I have another thought. Only I'm not sure how to say it.”

  “You simply say it,” Boland said.

  “I think we should pull him off of this.”

  “Pull him off?”

  “Yes,” McCarthy said slowly, measuring his words. “He hasn't been the same since London. He's different.”

  “How is he different?” Boland asked.

  “It's hard to explain. But even still, maybe the way we're using Rememberers wasn't God's intent for the ability in the first place. Maybe it's like you said—affecting. Maybe it's a disease to be eradicated with the rogue being the first to be infected, with the others soon to follow. We're giving Rememberers too much power. We're eliminating people based on their information. We're allowing them to play God. We're allowing him to play God. It's dangerous.”

  “You worry too much,” Boland said.

  “Someone has to,” McCarthy retorted.

  “It doesn't have to be you,” Boland said glibly. “A.I. is much stronger than you think. And they're impressed with him. Taking him off this is not an option.”

  McCarthy stiffened, bracing himself for the impact of his next statement. “I'm not saying just take him off this. I think he should be removed from A.I. altogether. Put him back with the other two on the URO level.”

  Boland literally shouted. “Are you mad? Need I remind you that he's your submit in the first place, a very unique find I might add. A.I. was most thrilled with your submission. We once again have a bona fide Rememberer within our ranks. Do you understand the significance? It's due to a Rememberer that A.I. even exists in the first place.”

  “I'm aware of the history,” McCarthy said irritably.

  “Then you're aware of how important the remembering
ability is to A.I.”

  “He'll still be a part of URO, just like the others. We'll still have access to his ability.”

  “It's not the same,” Boland countered.

  “A.I. is bigger than one being,” McCarthy said. He was down to clichés now, not a good sign, but he pressed on anyway. “He's too unpredictable, as ironic as that may sound. I believe he could be more dangerous than the rogue.”

  “I disagree. He's young, brash, and maybe even a little cocky. But he's not dangerous. Youthful vigor is no threat. It only needs to be tamed. You should rein him in, not stifle him.”

  McCarthy rubbed his forehead with one hand while gripping the receiver harder with the other. “Rein him in without stifling him? You know his history. He could have a little of his father in him. How am I to rein that in?”

  “Oh my, mentee, have you not learned anything in all our years together? The apple doesn't necessarily fall close to the tree. Don't let jealousy guide you.”

  McCarthy was silent for a moment. This was classic Boland, quick to sucker punch. But McCarthy wasn't biting. “My only concern is for the Church.”

  Boland feigned ignorance. “And what concern is this?”

  “If the feds were to dig and were somehow able to unearth our association with A.I., we could quite possibly have a monumental crisis on our hands, making the sex abuse scandal look like jaywalking.”

  Boland laughed faintly. “I never imagined you to be melodramatic. But let me soothe your concerns. Although A.I.'s beliefs may be somewhat unconventional and hard for the average person to grasp, they will eventually be known and accepted by all. Truth is truth. But in the unlikely event that the feds were to dig up a connection between A.I. and the Church, and the Church deemed the world still not ready to accept truth, then I, you, and a very small minority in the Church's hierarchy as a result of those findings would fall on our swords. The Church would quickly disavow any knowledge of A.I. as well as dissociate itself from the activities of obviously roguish members of its clergy. The Church would ultimately survive and would no doubt emerge as strong as ever. Remember, it's been historically adept at handling scandals of all sorts. Besides, it's like you'd said before—some decisions are made based on certain truths that you're not privy to.”

  McCarthy went silent again. Then, after a few moments, he said, “You're right. He's young. I'll rein him in.”

  “Good,” Boland said. “But don't stifle him.”

  “Wouldn't dream of it,” McCarthy said.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Monday, August 24

  Detective Jeremy Stint looked absently at the clock on the wall of his office. He was vaguely aware that it was 7:30 p.m. But his mind wasn't on the time. He was thinking about Phillip Beamer's murder. The murder, which had been committed in the first week of August, had been the first murder in Buckleton in nearly a decade. Murders in Buckleton were as rare as a truth-telling politician. The town was located in a sweet spot in South Carolina about halfway between Charlotte and Columbia. It was off the beaten path for drug runners, therefore drug traffickers and the peripheral trouble usually accompanying them tended to avoid it. It was a town made up mostly of the elderly and middle agers with small children. Young people, considering it the boondocks, high-tailed it out of town as soon as their parents and the law allowed, never looking back, which was just fine by Stint. He'd spent twenty years working homicides in Richmond, Virginia, where murders had seemed to occur as often as hands got dirty. The cities could have their mass population's largess of crime. He'd take the slow pace of Buckleton any day of the week.

  The rarity of murders in Buckleton made the occurrence of one more horrifying for the town's citizenry, especially since with Buckleton being a small town, the victim was usually known by all. Strangers were as rare as murders in Buckleton, which made Phillip Beamer's death doubly concerning. No one in town had known the man. It was as if he'd dropped into the town out of the clear blue sky.

  Stint reread his notes on the Beamer case. The victim's landlord, Mabel Jones, had nearly tripped over the victim's body on the morning of August 6. It was five o'clock in the morning and Mabel was leaving the house on her way to her second business. She was the proprietress of Belle's Cafe. Beamer had been left on her front porch, stabbed to death. Mabel had been up since four and hadn't heard Beamer leave the house. She thought he was in his room, which was on the house's second floor along with the rooms of her three other borders, all of whom had been sound asleep, hearing nothing.

  “I tell you that man was as quiet as a church mouse,” she'd said to Stint during her first interview at the station. “He'd barely make a sound. I hardly knew he was there. Unlike those other three who clunk around like show horses.”

  She'd rented a room to Beamer just two weeks earlier. He'd passed her background check and had excellent credit. He'd told her he was a freelance writer and was working on his first novel.

  Mabel sipped from the cup Stint had brought her. Drops of coffee trembled down the cup's sides, lightly dotting the table around it. “He said he needed a quiet place to work. And you know there's no quieter place than Buckleton. Even the wind tiptoes around here. I had no reason to doubt him. Everything had checked out. He was so nice and he paid me six months in advance.” When she finished, she looked weakly at Stint as if seeking his forgiveness.

  Stint remained stone-faced, but he didn't begrudge the woman's making of a buck, nor did he fault her for harboring a bad apple. Background and credit checks were the staples of the industry and were often a landlord's best and only defense against weirdoes and deadbeats. But they weren't foolproof. Heck, even reference-checking didn't always expose poisonous fruit. There was simply no surefire way for landlords or employers to keep a potential Ted Bundy or Jonathan the Bum from entering their places of business or humble abodes. It was impossible to know everything about everyone. Sometimes personal baggage moved in silent lockstep with applicants. “Did he have any visitors?” Stint had asked her.

  “Nary a one,” Mabel said. “Like I said, I hardly knew he was there. He was as quiet as a church mouse.”

  Church mouse, Stint thought somberly. It had been a morbidly fitting analogy. Beamer's head had been nearly decapitated, as if his neck had been snapped off by a human-sized mouse trap. Crime of passion perhaps, he thought.

  There was a light rap on the doorframe to his office.

  Stint looked up and saw the ICE agent standing in his doorway, holding a briefcase. After the Beamer murder, the agent had shown up at his office unexpectedly. Stint had no idea what Beamer's death had to do with national security. But then again, he didn’t know what the death had to do with anything. “Agent Bennett, come on in.”

  Bennett stepped into the office and closed the door behind him. Stint offered him the client seat in front of his desk. After an exchange of pleasantries, Bennett sat down in the offered seat and laid his briefcase across his lap. He opened it, pulling out the plastic bags containing the business card and crime scene photos. He handed the items to Stint. “I appreciate you letting me borrow these.”

  Stint laid them on his desk. “No problem, just professional courtesy. I'll put them in our storage safe. Would you like to share with me why you needed them?”

  “Let's just say I wanted to gauge the reaction of a little birdie.”

  “A suspect?”

  Bennett bit his lip. “It's hard to say.”

  Stint waited a moment to see if the agent was going to add to the short statement. When it was clear that he wasn't, he said, “We don't get much violent crime here. You can imagine the stir this one has caused. If there's anything you could share to help me solve this thing…”

  “You're not going to solve it,” Bennett said.

  “How's that?” Stint asked, his dander rising. “I know we're a smalltime outfit, but there's no cause to…”

  “That's not what I mean,” Bennett interjected. “You're not going to solve it because the murder had nothing to do with Buckleton.�
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  “Well, even a random act of violence happening in my jurisdiction is still my responsibility,” Stint said.

  “This wasn't a random act of violence.”

  Stint snatched up the plastic bags and stood up. He walked over to a floor safe tucked into the back corner of his office. He turned the combination lock and popped open the door. He paused and turned to face Bennett, holding the plastic bags up in the air. “Don't you think one professional courtesy deserves another?”

  There was a brief pause, and then Bennett said, “Is this place secure?”

  Stint just looked at him. Buckleton had a two man police force. Stint was the police chief and lead detective—well, only detective. The other member of the force, Raymond Johns, was home, probably just about ready to tuck his five-year-old son into bed.

  “Okay,” Bennett said, obviously catching the detective's drift. He nodded for Stint to return to his chair. The police chief placed the plastic bags inside the safe, closed the door, and readjusted the combination lock. After he returned to his chair, Bennett said, “Phillip Beamer was also known as Abu Dawood. He was an American citizen with ties to Al Qaeda.”

  “He was a terrorist?” Stint asked.

  “He was a sleeper cell, planning a terrorist attack against America. He and a group of his cohorts were going to blow up the Strom Thurmond Federal Building in Columbia. We'd been tracking his email communications for a number of years. We'd known about Beamer or Dawood since 2001.”

  “Who took him out? Was it us?”

  “By us, you mean the US government?”

  Stint nodded.

  “No,” Bennett said. “There were no plans to take Dawood/Beamer out. We would have prevented the attack, but he was worth more to us alive than dead.”

  “Then who?”

  Bennett's face drew in as he slowly shook his head. “We don't know.”

  “But you have a theory,” Stint said.